The City State
The legendary foundation of the city of Rome was in 753 BCE.
The founding myth represented the founders as orphaned brothers
Romulus and Remus, suckled by a wolf. Just as the Britons had
a legend of the founding of Britain by Brutus from Troy (supposed
to have landed at Totnes) the Romans had a legend of foundation
from Troy by Aeneas (written up in the time of Augustus by Virgil
in his Aeneid
but perhaps this legend was a literary invention of the early
Empire period). Years in official documents were dated from the
Foundation of the City (AUC - Anno Urbis Conditae).

We should note that it is because official documents still
exist that we know more about Rome than other empires of ancient
times. Latin remained the official language of Europe until the
17th century.

Rome began as a city state in the region of Italy on the borders of Etruria and Latium.
The dominant people of that area are supposed to have been Etruscans.
Their language is unknown as all literary texts have been lost.
It is possible that they did not speak an Indo-European language, but their origin according to
Herodotus was from the kingdom of Lydia in western modern Turkey
according to recent archaeology - an area curiously near to historic
Troy. The ancient Lydian language is reported to be Indo-European
of the Anatolian branch. They used an alphabet based on the Greek
letters but even the pronunciation of the few remaining inscriptions
(on tombstones) is not certain. Ancient history is much disputed
among those who study it. This article indicates the extent of disputes
and uncertainties

Romans spoke Latin and were the descendants of an Indo-European
migration into Italy. Theirs was an Italic language. Several
other Italic languages were spoken in the peninsula. Their influence
lives on in the various dialects of Italian still spoken in modern
Italy. The
arrival of Indo-Europeans into Italy is lost in the mists of
time - there is no documentary evidence of any kind about their
early history, other than what might be discerned from the study
of early Latin.

The early kings seem to have been Etruscans but the exact
relations between Latin speakers and Etruscans in the early days
is difficult to be certain about. Knowledge of the Etruscan language
probably died out in the days of the early empire (Claudius,
a historian as well as emperor, is supposed to have been able
to read the Etruscan texts. His 20 volume History of the Etruscans
has been lost.).

Republic
Romans prided themselves on the fact they had no king. Instead
they had an elected leadership consisting of two Consuls. Their
official legends speak of a revolution in 509 BCE when they drove out the (Etruscan speaking)
king Tarquin and replaced him with a Republic (Res publica)
- the word itself means "Public Thing" or "Public
Business". Power was in fact in the hands of the aristocrats
- families whose names continue to be seen in the records until
the time of the Empire - and it would be accurate to call it
an oligarchy.
These were represented in the Senate - assembly of old men, the
equivalent in some respects of the British House of Lords when
it was hereditary. From the beginning the two consuls - one to
balance the other to prevent single rule - were elected annually
by the Senate. The constitution also recognised the need in an
emergency to elect a single commander, for six months, known
as dictator. There was also a popular assembly which provided,
at least in the early days, a restraint on the oligarchy. This
popular element weakened towards the end of the republic, after
the rise of slavery - especially after the defeat of Carthage
and its final destruction in 146 BC. However, throughout the
period of the Republic there were struggles between the ordinary
people (Plebs) and the aristocrats (Optimates). The people demanded
elected representatives - Tribunes - who played a role in government
along with the Consuls and other officials and had a veto. They
also demanded that one of the Consuls be a Pleb. At the end of
the Republic those who wanted reform got themselves elected as
Tribunes giving them immunity against arrest, before taking away
the power of the people.

Unlike in a modern state it was not clearly defined who had
the right to make laws. Although the Consuls were considered
to be the highest officials, and perhaps were the equivalent
of a modern Head of State, several other officials, elected in
various ways, were powerful. For example, the Censor could
use his office for purposes other than his stated duties: maintaining
the lists of citizens. The process of becoming a Consul was recognised
as the Cursus honorum (Course of Honors),
by which a young aristocrat progressed through a series of offices
(honors) and only rose if he performed well in earlier offices.
A similar arrangement operated in the British Empire. Some modern
republics might do well to imitate this process and so improve
the quality of those who reach the top.

What was the secret of Rome's expansion?
The city probably began as a trading center but at some time
developed a strong military system. Every male citizen was expected
to serve in the military, at his own expense. The custom of enslaving
the people conquered and taking all their property made the city
rich - and feared. A military culture grew up in which the soldierly
qualities were valued above those of commerce and crafts.

This popular army ceased to work as the city controlled larger
and larger areas. Gaius Marius reorganised the army in about
100 BCE. He created what was in effect an entirely mercenary
army - soldiers who fought for pay rather than patriotism. He
recruited poorer men - previously excluded. The soldiers then
became answerable to their commanders rather than to the Republic.

Decline of the Republic
It was in the time of Marius that the Republic began to deteriorate.
As a successful military leader he had six successive consulships,
something hitherto forbidden by the constitution. It was in his
time that the great men began to fight each other for office.
(See Plutarch) Marius fought a war, was exiled and returned for
a seventh consulship, behaving with brutality. He was followed
by Sulla who called himself dictator and whose regime
was like many modern tyrannies marked with assassinations and
mass murders.

Great Power
Gradually the state expanded by conquest and alliance with neighboring
states until by 241 BCE it controlled the whole of Italy and
Sicily. In the process it defeated, conquered and destroyed (146
BCE) the Carthaginian empire based on Carthage in North Africa.
This empire (also a city republic) had been founded by emigrants
and traders from Phoenicia - they were speakers of a Semitic
language related to modern Arabic (see modern Maltese). The Carthaginians had controlled
much of North Africa and had colonies in Sicily and southern
Spain. They traded all over the Mediterranean and into the Atlantic
at least as far as Britain (mainly for tin). The stories that
they or their Phoenician cousins had sailed round Africa may
well be true.

Rome conquered these lands, and acquired a flood of slaves
from the defeated armies and settlers.

Roman forces also expanded into Iberia - now Spain and Portugal
- from the Carthaginian and Greek colonies on the Mediterranean
coast. Then there were conquests in Greece itself and the Adriatic
coasts - Illyria (now modern Yugoslavia). Julius Caesar led the conquest
of Gaul - roughly modern France and Switzerland and visited Britain
(without success).

Slavery
The difference
between the wealth of the aristocrats and the ordinary people
became a problem. The wars of conquest which expanded the area
ruled by Rome also created huge numbers of slaves as war prisoners
to work on the estates of the aristos and in the state-owned
mines. In effect this drove wages down and made large numbers
of "free citizens" unemployed. The slaves were put
to work on the Latifundia - agricultural estates run like the
slave worked plantations of the southern states of the United
States before the Civil War, and many of the Spanish colonies
in the Americas. The response by the oligarchy was to pay the unemployed with
free food and provide free tickets to the rather degraded spectacles
of the Games (panem et circenses - bread and circuses).
Of course, the long term effect of these policies was to make
the city of Rome a parasite on the empire, no longer able to
feed itself from local farms. Rome became dependent on the grain
from Egypt and North Africa (Libya). This is the sort of situation
commented on by Ibn
Khaldun who observed that a kingdom that allowed its necessities
of life to be provided by others would inevitably fall under
their control. Rome did not pay for Egyptian wheat, which was
supplied as a tribute or "tax".

One resulting problem was revealed when Marcus Antonius, in
his attempt to become Julius Caesar's successor, seized control
of Egypt. This was the equivalent of a hostile regime controlling
the main oil fields, supplying a modern society dependent on
imported oil. Thus, even at the height of Rome's power there
were long term problems building up.

Civil Wars
Two kinds of civil war occurred. One was a war of rich against
poor - the Plebs wanted a share of government. That was largely
lost when the Gracchi (organising a sort of Labour Party) were
assassinated. The other was the struggle between families of
the super-rich. It was the latter struggle that produced the
Empire. This only brought the civil wars to an end for a time,
as a frequent occurrence in the time of the empire was the head
of an army attempting to seize the top job in competition with
others.

Lays of Ancient RomeThe traditional stories of early Roman
history, such as Horatius's heroic defence of the Tiber bridge,
and How the sacred geese saved the Capitol (at the time of the
Celtic capture of the city in 389 BCE).Oxford
history of Roman Britain - Collingwood

The Empire
By the time the Romans controlled the whole Mediterranean area
the old political arrangements didn't work. The institutions
of a small city state were failing to control the vast area of
what could be described as an empire (imperium = area
of command). The Senate appointed governors to the new provinces.
Governing a province became part of the Course of Honors that
led to higher offices in the state. The governors of Provinces
were usually ex-Consuls (Proconsuls).

There were civil wars between interest groups and between
the great men - the super-rich who actually controlled the state.
The outcome of the civil wars was the coming to power of Octavius
Caesar the adopted son of the assassinated Julius Caesar who
had been trying to re-establish a monarchy. Octavius gave himself
the title Augustus - respected. After defeating his rivals in
battle he established a new office in the state: Princeps
with a variety of old titles. Thus he assumed the title Imperator
(Commander in Chief); Pontifex
Maximus (chief priest); Censor (chief social secretary,
regulator of citizenship); Tribune (representative of
the ordinary people). At the beginning he gave the impression
of this new office being a kind of first citizen or president
of the Republic (but abrogating the original principle that required
two consuls to avoid personal rule). However, in practice this
First Citizen had enormous power with the use of the judicial
authority but he also used: bribery, blackmail, quiet assassinations.
He would send "suggestions" for legislation to the
Senate which seldom rejected them. Eventually an emperor's suggestions
(constitutiones) had the force of law. After Augustus's
long reign the power became less and less constrained in the
hands of the relatives who inherited the office, each one worse
than the previous until it came into the hands of Caligula and
Nero.

Tiberius was his step-son of his wife Livia.

The annual Consuls continued to be appointed, and indeed the
list of consuls continues until 643. The custom was to name a
year by the names of the Consuls. The later consuls were nearly
always the reigning emperors. However, the post had become honorary
- they had no function, unless to spend their money and hold
Games. By the time of Justinian it was difficult to find rich
men willing to take on the honorary post and it ceased a few
years later.

Until the assassination of Nero all the emperors were members
of the Julio-Claudian family with the surname Caesar.
The name then became in itself a title which all subsequent emperors
held, even if they were not members in any way of the Caesar
family. In the later empire indeed the title of the top ruler
became "Augustus" and the "Caesar" was a
deputy or vice-emperor. The latest development was when the ruler
of Russia called himself Tsar (he regarded Moskva as the successor
to Rome after Byzantium and called it the Third Rome). The German
rulers of the Holy Roman Empire (see below) also became known
as Kaiser - a title that became extinct only in 1918 in Germany
and Austria.

In the time of the Republic there were many offices of state
and no single person could control the whole system. The two
Consuls had to agree with each other; the Tribunes and the popular
assembly also had to agree. There were term limits. This was
in practice a principle similar to the Separation of Powers,
now seen in the Constitution of the United States after the Founders
of the United States had studied, among other things, the Roman
Republic. After Augustus seized power one man had acquired all
the power. Unaccountable arbitrary power became the rule until
the end, tempered only by riots and army rebellions. It is not
surprising that Mussolini modelled his authoritarian fascist state on the Roman Empire.

In theory, the Princeps was appointed by the Senate; in practice
it became hereditary, tempered by the fact that the army, or
any part of the army, could declare their commanding officer
to be Imperator. Augustus himself was "reappointed"
by the Senate every ten years. In theory the ruler could be appointed
by the Senate until the end.

The Roman Empire can be considered to have two main periods.
The first period is sometimes called the "Principate":
the emperors continued to be thought of as subordinate to the
Senate (even if in practice the Senate had little power or influence
over what they did, or even to do with the initial appointment).
In reality in this period the emperors were usually appointed
by a part of the army. Within this period there are two periods:
the emperors from Augustus to Nero, increasingly dictatorial
and corrupt (except, perhaps, for Claudius); the Flavian
emperors from Vespasianus to Commodus, an efficient family of
military rulers, with Marcus Aurelius as the outstanding philosopher
king, succeeded by his brutal and incompetent son.

There was then a period of increasing chaos with a series
of short lived emperors, some extremely eccentric, such as Elagabulus,
the 17 year old high priest of a Lebanese temple, who brought
his god with him - a black stone.

Fossilisation?
However this period can be considered as coming to an end with
the arrival of Aurelianus (270-275). He began the habit of behaving
like a Persian king.

It wasDiocletianus (284-305), believed to
have been Illyrian (Albanian) in language (with Latin as his
working language), who modeled himself on the practices of the
Persian empire, illustrating how in a two power conflict the
two sides come to resemble each other. These "oriental"
emperors transformed the empire into a ritualized state, with
for example an elaborate hierarchy of titles and court ceremonial.
The emperors came to sit on a throne, wearing a Diadem modelled
on that of the Persian king of kings. Economic paralysis occurred.
Diocletian tackled inflation by fixing the price of everything
and making every position in society hereditary. Presumably he
did not understand economics and the process by which gold was
passing out of the empire to import luxuries from the east. Town
councillors (Decuriones) could not resign but had to hand
over the position to their sons (along with the taxes required);
tradesmen had to hand on their professions. Anyone with money
fled the towns to live on their rural estates (archaeology shows
this in Britain with the growth of country houses - Villas -
and the decay of towns - big townhouses being subdivided into
apartments for the poor. Deurbanisation of course was a feature
later found in feudalism
and it may be one of the contributory causes. It was to take
about 800 years to reverse the trend and rebuild city life in
Europe.

Diocletian also split the empire into two administrative units.
Legally, it remained one state, but it is from this point that
the western, Latin-speaking part increasingly declined, while
the eastern, Greek-speaking part, flourished. The border between
the two parts remains of significance today in Yugoslavia where Croatia is Catholic and
westernised; Serbia is eastern and Orthodox. Belgrade is the
site of Diocletian's line. He retired to the area of modern Yugoslavia.

Diocletian also marks the rise of Religion as an official
feature of the ruling system. He favored a cult of the Sun, oriental
rather than traditional religion, and persecuted the Christians,
apparently not noticing how strong they were - perhaps because
he dealt mainly with the Army where Mithraism was common.

Constantinus (also believed to have been Illyrian)
removed all prohibitions of Christianity in 307 (though he himself
was not a Christian) for political reasons - the church, under
his control, played the role of a modern Single Political Party
in a dictatorship. (See the
Papacy).

Briefly, Julianus attempted to end the Christian monopoly
by restoring freedom of thought to pagans and philosophers but
he was killed in battle. (Try Gore Vidal - Julian, a novelised
biography.) After him Christianity became compulsory and a part
of the state.

There was an end of rational intellectual debate after the
imposition of Christianity - disputes were about the various
Christian "heresies" after scientific thought had been
attacked as "pagan" by "saint" Cyril of Alexandria
(see the murder of Hypatia). Boethius's
"Consolations of Philosophy" was perhaps the last
rational literary work of the western empire as it collapsed.
Was Gibbon right when he argued that it was Christianity and
its culture of irrationality that fatally weakened the Empire,
causing the rulers to concentrate on theology rather than practical
statesmanship?

It can be speculated that ordinary people became interested
in religion after the fall of the Republic when they had lost
all ability to influence the government.

Constantine moved the capital of the empire to Byzantium,
a Greek city on the strait between Europe and Asia, renaming
it Constantinopolis. From this time the empire became
Greek rather than Latin in language and culture, and its main
interests moved to the east. This was the beginning of the abandonment
of the Latin west and the beginning of the Middle Ages. Following
his time there were nearly always two or more emperors who mostly
worked together, or at least consulted each other. However, the
western emperor did not usually for example supply soldiers to
assist the eastern emperor, nor vice versa. The east had constant
needs for soldiers to fight its major enemy in the Persian Sassanian
empire in a continuing war covering the provinces of the Middle
East. Both parts of the empire had to meet the migrating German,
Slavic and Turkic tribes which attacked both parts but permanently
weakened more the west than the east.

The definitive division occurred in 395 when the last great
emperor of both parts, Theodosius the Great, died and his son
Honorius became emperor in the west and his brother Arcadius
emperor in the east. Honorius was only 11 and was dominated by
Stilicho the partly German general, the actual ruler. Arcadius
was 17 and had a weak intellect and was dominated by his prime
minister, Rufinus originally from Aquitaine. There was never
again an emperor ruling both parts.

Divided empire

Western Empire
The empire in the west extended into the former Celtic lands:
Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Britain, Belgium but not Germany
(except briefly).

The area of modern Yugoslavia was disputed. Diocletian's line
passed through Belgrade. Each side valued this area - Illyria
- for its soldiers.

The western emperor did not usually live in Rome, which by
this time had declined into a lesser city (like modern Detroit,
the city was a ruin). His capital might be Mediolanum (Milano).
Diocletianus had settled in Nicomedia near Istanbul. If an emperor
made a rare visit to Rome for a ceremonial Triumph it was recorded
in the chronicles.

The population in the west tended to decline. Fighting the
invading tribes, possibly the exhaustion of the soil, waves of
infection, bad economic policy (Diocletian) led to general decline.

Lack of taxable production made for a spiral: inability to
pay an army; inability to resist invaders; decay of government.
The final result was Feudalism.

The outer provinces, such as Britannia could not be supported
- especially after local commanders (such as Magnus Maximus who removed the British troops
in an invasion of Italy in 387) had tried to seize the power
and took the soldiers away, leaving the land unprotected from
the Scots (Irish) and the Saxons).

The final abandonment of Britain was in 410, but the Britons
may not have finally realised it until their request to Aëtius
the Consul for assistance against the Picts and Scots in 446
(the Groans of the Britons) received no reply. Hengist and Horsa
are supposed to have landed in Kent in 449 - apparently at the
invitation of Vortigern who may have thought they would just
be another group of Auxiliaries - useful German mercenaries.
That was the beginning of English
history as they owed no allegiance to Rome and avoided the
old Roman cities.

The state finally faded away in the west, to be replaced by
tribal kingdoms. The last person to claim the title of emperor
was Romulus Augustulus (little Augustus), a rather joking name,
considering that he was the puppet of a German king - Orestes.
He was deposed in 476 by Odoacer another German king. The last
emperor to be recognised by Constantinople was Julius Nepos (474-5).

In theory the western empire then became united with the east,
but until the time of Justinian the eastern emperors made no
attempt to rule it. Instead German kingdoms with shifting borders
replaced Roman order.

One factor in the final decline may have been the climate
disturbances in the time of Justinian (see Speculations) making a reconquest from the
east impossible. The Britons were wiped out by the Plague and
the Anglo-Saxons advanced into the empty cities and undefended
lands.

Justinian's general Belisarius (probably an Illyrian from
what is now modern Bulgaria) was making progress towards reincorporating
Italy and north Africa into the empire when the plague which
may have been a result of the climate disturbance recorded by
the court historian Procopius made further progress impossible.
In any case the taxes of the eastern empire were not enough to
support this reconquest, and the reconquered lands themselves
did not produce enough taxes to pay for the troops.

North Africa, Spain and Sicily were lost to the Arabs when
Islam exploded on the scene. Italy reverted to German control.

Eastern Empire
The empire in the east covered what is now the Levant, North Africa and at its greatest extent reached
as far as Armenia
and Iraq.

The working language became Greek. It had become more the
legacy of Alexander the Great and his Hellenistic world than
of Rome.

Justinianus (527-565)
The last great emperor of the east was probably Justinian, the
nephew of Justin, an illiterate Illyrian soldier who rose in
the army. During his long reign he tried to reconquer the West,
and nearly succeeded, at least in Italy and North Africa, thanks
to his army commander, the Illyrian Belisarius. He was probably
the last Latin speaking emperor. But the task proved impossible,
not only because of insufficient resources but perhaps because
of the Plague - an epidemic, probably similar to the 14th century
Black Death which
occurred in 541-2 (see also Volcano). Thus large areas were depopulated.

In the time of Justinian a compendium of Roman law was issued
in Latin - the corpus iuris civilis - the last major government
document in Latin - and the foundation of law throughout the
former empire, even in Europe. After Justinian the language of
state became Greek, a language almost unknown in western Europe
(except in Ireland) - though the peoples spoke many others, including
Aramaic, Arabic, Coptic and Berber. The title of the emperor
became Basileus - King - a taboo in Rome itself dating back to
the original Revolution. He was also known as Autokrator, Ruler,
a title that descended to the Tsars of Russia, implying absolute power - though
the Senate in Constantinople still had a role, and also the people.

The rise of Islam
reduced the Byzantine empire greatly. Muslims found it easy to
conquer the southern parts: modern Egypt, Palestine, north Africa, Syria and the old
enemy in Persia. This was partly because of a lack of loyalty
(group feeling)
by many of the dissident (Monophysite) Christians of the area
who had often been persecuted by the government in the capital.

Byzantium was reduced to a core area of Greece, Anatolia and
the Balkans. These areas too were conquered losing the ability
to recruit soldiers in Anatolia. In the west their territories
in Italy were conquered by the rising power of the Normans at
about the same time as these were conquering England. In the
east they were conquered by the rising power of the Seljuk Turks.
The battle of Manzikert lost them Anatolia and its taxes and
fighting men. The sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders in
1204 weakened the empire so much that its end in 1453 was inevitable.

The Byzantine empire declined eventually to a single city
- Constantinopolis - and was so weakened by the Crusades that it was conquered by the Muslim
Ottoman Turks
in 1453, becoming as Istanbul the capital of that vast empire.
The last emperor was Constantine the fourteenth. See map of Byzantium
empire by 1400.

What was the cause of the fall of the empire?
This question has been discussed for centuries. Perhaps Ibn Khaldun has a useful explanation. He
regarded the secret of a strong nation as being "group feeling".
Early Rome seems to have had a strong sense of patriotism shared
by all classes. But later this feeling of solidarity began to
dissipate as the interests of the aristocrats - the Senatorial
families - diverged from those of the ordinary people. The turning
point was perhaps as early as the campaigns of the Gracchi brothers
- Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus - to reform the institutions of
the state in the mid-second century BC, and especially the distribution
of land. The conquered cities and states produced empty lands
and lots of slaves.

In the early days of the Republic captured land was distributed
to ordinary people as well as the aristocrats. From the time
of the victory over Carthage land went to the aristocrats who
caused it to be worked by slaves in the form of Latifundia -
plantation estates. The result was that the displaced "free"
farmers had to move to the city where they became largely unemployed,
while the work on the Latifundia was done by enslaved captives
from the conquered countries. Already this was the root of the
later feudalism
that became the pattern of life in Europe from about 600 years
later.

The Gracchi brothers, grandsons of the Roman general who had
finally destroyed Carthage, Scipio Africanus, campaigned for
the rights of ordinary people. Their campaign failed and they
were assassinated. This might be considered a turning point in
the path taken by Rome. If they had succeeded perhaps there would
have been more free men with farms and businesses and a better
distribution of wealth. But the big money - the Senatorial class
- fought back and decisively won. From then on the decline of
the Republic would seem to have become inevitable. The empire
that succeeded it demanded not solidarity but Obedience. It had
become a military dictatorship.
To replace the group feeling of the old Republic were new religions which justified obedience to
the powers in charge - an ideology of submission. After Constantinus
Christianity became compulsory and freedom of thought vanished.

Politically the mass of unemployed had little solidarity with
the Senatorial class who controlled the state. The Senatorial
class began to see the free citizens in much the same light as
they saw their slaves. Solidarity had broken down. Already, before
the change in the political system, Rome was on the way to the
complete autocracy of the Empire.

Economically, the city of Rome became dependent on imported
grain from north Africa, and especially Egypt. Here, we might
remember the way western countries are at the present day dependent
on using oil
from countries they do not control. Rome of course did not pay
for the grain which was a Tax or tribute from the conquered province.
Thus ultimately it depended not on economic exchange but on military
force.

We might also think about the way the modern western nations
get their consumer goods from China.

From the time of Marius the Legions were not formed from free
citizens but were paid mercenaries with allegiance not to the
City, or the Republic, but to their commanding officer. Throughout
the time of the Empire the soldiers became the main choosers
of the Emperor - a tradition carried on in the former Spanish
colonies of the Americas where the Pronunciamiento has been a common method
of changing the ruler. There were frequent occasions when an
army declared their commander the Emperor, and then went on to
fight other "Roman" armies. Towards the end, the armies
consisted of German tribesmen, Illyrians (Albanians), Isaurians
(from Cilicia, which is now southern Turkey see Wikipedia)
and Slavs from modern Serbia. These had no idea of the ancient
loyalties of the Republic.

It was not a large transition from these "official"
armies to the armies of barbarians, no longer officered by people
with any connection to Rome.

Did the use of Lead have any role in the decline of Rome?
It is suggested that the Romans ingested so much lead from their
water pipes and cooking pots that their brains were poisoned.
Barbarians would not have been affected and so remained intelligent.

Engineering and Economy
The Romans are considered to have been good engineers in that
they built thousands of miles of Roads which were not equalled
until the 19th century, as well as aqueducts and other large
scale constructions, such as defensive walls. This article suggests that they were not very
innovative in their engineering and merely perfected what other
cultures had already invented. Moreover the criticism of the
roads is that they were used for military purpose but perhaps
did not stimulate the economy, thus did not pay for themselves
but consumed taxes. In fact this points to the biggest weakness
of Rome. It was a military culture, good at conquering and enslaving
others, but not good at generating wealth. While it was easy
to steal others' wealth Rome was successful, but that is not
the basis of a long lasting civilisation - as Britain and Europe may
be discovering.

How much should modern people admire the Roman empire? Here
is an article suggesting it was a cultural disaster.Counterpunch.

Remember Simone Weil's hatred of the
Roman Empire and what it did to Europe's cultural richness and
diversity: "If we consider the long centuries and the vast
area of the Roman Empire and compare these centuries with the
ones that preceded it and the ones that followed the barbarian
invasions, we perceive to what extent the Mediterranean basin
was reduced to spiritual sterility by the totalitarian State."
As Weil's biographer, Simone Pétrement, comments, "The
Roman peace was soon the peace of the desert, a world from which
had vanished, together with political liberty and diversity,
the creative inspiration that produces great art, great literary
works, science, and philosophy. Many centuries had to pass before
the superior forms of human life were reborn."

LegacyLanguage
From the fall of the empire - or its transformation by the Germanic
tribes who invaded the western area - Rome became a distant legend.
The language spoken by ordinary people became the various dialects
of modern Europe which include French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese,
Romanian and minor languages such as Romansch and Ladino. The
political system was entirely replaced by feudalism and the modern states that grew
out of it.

Outside the former empire grew the various non-Roman languages:
varieties of German (including English, Dutch, Scandinavian etc.)
and the non-Indo-European Hungarian and Turkish.

This is because literacy became rare, remaining only with
monks in the monasteries, whereas the popular languages evolved
unchecked by literary usage. French seems to have been based
on the ordinary Latin spoken by the soldiers and working people,
influenced by the native Celtic languages (gaulish) and German
- in fact it was a form of pidgin. In Iberia several new languages
came into being, represented now as Castilian (Spanish), Catalan/Provencal
and Portuguese. These were influenced by the mixture of languages
spoken in Iberia, including Greek, the native languages (mostly
unknown to us) and the later Arabic of the invaders. All these
successor (Romance) languages retained a common vocabulary and
some aspects of Latin grammar.

In the Byzantine empire Latin fell out of use even for government
purposes and was replaced by Greek. The Aramaic speaking provinces
and North Africa were conquered by the Arabs.

Nevertheless in the west written Latin remained the common
language of the Church and scholars well into the 17th century.
Only from the late 17th century did scientific texts come to
be written in successor languages such as English and French
- Isaac Newton was perhaps the last major scientist to publish
in Latin.

The final fall of Constantinople in 1453 released Greek books
from the libraries into Europe, partly fuelling the Renaissance
of intellectual life there. Soon they were translated and printed.

Holy Roman Empire
The numerous kingdoms founded by the German tribes were gradually
conquered by the kingdom of the Franks, especially after it was
taken over by a dynasty founded by Charles Martel (Charles the
Hammer) which superseded the Merovingian dynasty.

The Franks were based in Gaul. At first they were headed by
the Merovingian dynasty, a tribal family whose origins were in
the period of migration. They split and recombined into numerous
combinations of kingdoms until they lost their power to a hereditary
prime minister whose title was "Mayor of the Palace".
The most famous of these was Charles Martel who, still as Mayor,
led the armies of the Franks against the invading Muslims and
defeated them near modern Poitiers in 732 - preventing the Muslim
conquest of the north (but Muslims did conquer and hold for some
years enclaves in the south of France as far north as modern
Switzerland). Pepin the first became king himself in 751, ending
the Merovingian dynasty in name as well as power, and then spread
the kingdom into Germany and Italy, thus reuniting large parts
of the former western Empire, as well as areas that had never
been Roman. In return for saving his own skin from the Lombards
the Pope Adrian the first crowned him King of the Franks in 774.
It was Pope Leo the third who decided that what Carolus Magnus,
Charles the Great or Charlemagne needed was to become Emperor
of the west. Thus he crowned him in 800. What the pope wanted
was to have the prestige of balancing the authority of the Emperor
in Constantinople with one of his own.

Was this in fact the re-creation of the Roman Empire in the
West? No, of course it wasn't. It was a new type of state - if
indeed it was a state at all - the most one could say for it
was that it evoked for the people at the time the false memory
of an Empire they did not understand.

However, to the Pope it may not have seemed entirely different.
Charlemagne was a German, but he probably spoke some Latin, quite
probably in an early form of proto-French. The later emperors
had been semi-barbarians and had inter-married with the Romans.
If there was a real authority in the west it was the Pope and
not the Emperor who wielded it, but one of the themes of medieval
history was a contest between Popes and Emperors for supremacy
that was never really resolved, except that the position of emperor
became less and less significant.

The state eventually became known as the "Holy"
Roman Empire but its emperors never had the power and authority
of the old emperors. From the beginning the title was symbolic,
and became less and less real as the centuries passed. When it
was ended Kaiser was just a title of the rulers of the Austrian Empire. The ruler of the new (1871)
German empire under Bismarck adopted the title Kaiser. The three
versions of Caesar ended in 1917 (Russia) and 1918 (Germany and
Austria).